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by Agnieszka Komoch
Let me start with a bit of geography: GEN-Europe´s itinerary through this continent includes meetings in Germany (Centre), Italy (South), Spain (West) and East. These year’s annual meeting of GEN-Europe was held in Poland, representing a region that have called our attention over the last years. Nicole Grospierre, founder of the Polish Alternative Village Network, a long time partner of GEN-Europe,suggested Wolimierz (very South-West Poland) as a location for our events. Wolimierz is a semi-abandoned village with an old train station in the process of being converted into a multifunctional community centre. This project started in 1990, when students from the nearby theatre school in Wroclaw looked for a place where they could develop their art and stay together as a group. They found an abandoned train station and settled down in the area. Today, there are 25 families living around the station, most of them working with theatre or music.
The two weeks GEN-Europe team spent at the “Stacja” (Polish for “train station”) were full of interesting encounters with the inhabitants and the Polish alternative movement. We witnessed the intense preparation for the GEN-Europe assembly and the “Interplanetary Ecovillage Festival” and practically have seen the place being transformed little by little into an international venue, not without a good doses of Polish inventiveness and improvisation, a great international team and … rain.
Despite the weather and worrying news of floods in Poland, GEN-Europe was able to hold three events in Wolimierz:
- Facilitation and Consensus Course with Beatrice Briggs from the ecovillage of Huehuecoyotl, Mexico; July 10-15
- GEN-Europe Assembly of Members, July 16-19
- The Interplanetary Ecovillage Festival, July 20-22
The course was part of GEN-Europe education programme, whereas the annual meeting and the festival were focused on networking and discussion of the activities of GEN-Europe. About 50 participants from 15 European countries plus representatives from Senegal, USA, Brazil and Mexico came to the meeting.
Seen from a perspective of the last 4 years of our activities, this time GEN-Europe tried something new. We have not only held the assembly for first time in a country that belonged to the East bloc, but, together with Wiktor and Jemiolka, our hosts, we have also tried to offer a variety of possibilities for ecovillages and interested to participate: workcamp in Wolimierz, the course, the festival and the meeting itself. Especially Polish youth took advantage of the workcamp, sponsored by the Polish-German Foundation for Cooperation.
In particular the consensus and facilitation course has turned out to be a good “warm up” exercise before the assembly. Bea Briggs skilfully led us through the basic pits and falls of facilitation and focused on consensus as a process of cooperative decision making, its values, challenges in implementation and role in social change. The 10 graduates from the course had an immediate opportunity to practice during the GEN-Europe meeting by being part of the facilitation team headed by Beatrice. And what a great team it was!
This experience, both external facilitation of the meeting (Bea Briggs) and working with a team glued together through a common interest, experience and involvement has turned out to be a solid fundament for a successful meeting. It will certainly have an influence on the way GEN-Europe´s future meetings will be organised.
The assembly of members was, in its origins, planned to support ecovillages and networks in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately out of 5 invited Russian participants only one could come. However with numerous participation from the Polish Dabrowka (30 year old Polish intentional community) and representatives from Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary we have tried to make up for the absence of the Russians.
One of the highlights of our stay in Poland was an excursion to the Czech Republic. Wolimierz collaborates very closely with a Czech ecovillage called “Morning Star”, located just 5 km away. The community, similarly to Wolimierz is dedicated to revitalisation of a semi-abandoned region and has created a local farming museum, a library and a children’s theatre, which performed for us. Our group participated (or tried to, as it the rain was a permanent topic on our agenda) in putting a foundation stone under a windmill that will serve the village to make flower and other grain products. It was also wonderful to dance around the fire to old Czech folk music.
During the festival and at the last days of our assembly the authorities of the neighbouring countries have opened a so called “green border”, a shortcut between the two communities that lead us among the wheat fields through a beautiful (and tasty) cherry trees alley to the Morning Star. There we were illusioned with the idea that we were making the real Europe, going beyond bureaucracy and symbolically bringing countries together. Unfortunately green border did not mean that participants from Turkey, Ukraine and Senegal could cross without a visa! An exception have been made in opening a cross point that is usually not in use, however we still had to comply with the regulations and passports are in the way towards cooperation and understanding, at least seen from the grassroots’ perspective.
Although our efforts at the local level, as described above, met some resistance, one could say that we were more successful at the European scale. Just one day before leaving for Poland, our secretariat received the happy news that our organisation was given a grant of 72.000 Euros from the European Commission’s Directorate of Environment. During the assembly all present members celebrated it with champagne and a small ritual to mark this threshold in the history of our association.
This recognition is a great incentive to go on with our activities and keep on developing a common dream for the ecovillages and the Planet. As one of the participants said: “The dream is possible when the dream and the dreamer become just one”.
Both during the course and the assembly the activities at the site were frantic. Music and theatre groups were rehearsing, new people were arriving, the infrastructure was constantly being improved and prayers sent to the weather gods.
Many of us have heard of “Mama Bum” a women drumming group from Dabrowka, who was coming to play at the festival. They were a great counterpart of the local “Papa Drum”, who’s repertoire we knew by heart, as they rehearsed every night during the assembly. However, it was Mama Bum who became GEN-Europe´s favourite.
During the festival the remaining ecovillagers have organised a spontaneous meeting with the festival guests. Each ecovillage was shortly introduced and we finished together with songs and dance. It was good that we rehearsed a couple of songs during the assembly (we managed to sing “Brother Jacob” in at least 7 languages!) however during the festival we preferred to leave the floor to the musicians and Wolimierz´s theatres.
Wiktor, the director of “Puppets´ Clinic” one of the three theatres in Stacja Wolimierz, organises festivals each year, always with an ecological theme running through. Last year´s festival was dedicated to the Polish Alternative Village Network (about 2000 people came) and this year to GEN-Europe. Probably due to the weather, only about 300 people turned out. Using the occasion, “Puppets Clinic” improvised a manifestation to protect a mountain that a Swedish company wants to convert into a quarry and use the material to build highways.
This type of event offers an alternative forum, something that hasn’t disappeared in Poland despite of “legalisation” of the underground movement. And there is an enormous power behind it: A technical equipment in value of about 40.000 USD was gathered and put at Wolimierz´s disposition by friends and famous musicians; The office was turned into a professional music studio; Music CDs were made overnight and sold the next day; A radio station was installed on the roof and transmitted the music in a radius of 100 km, etc., etc. All that with symbolic governmental support (Euroregion) of 400,- USD.
It is difficult to measure the effects of such a gathering either through membership numbers or people that showed their interest; and it is even more difficult to find out what impact it might have on our future. Here and now I can say that we have strengthened the bonds among us, we have worked with the energy of the group and the place and got more experience that has made the organisation grow. We are only at the beginnings of this great journey and, dear passengers, the next station is…
Yours truly
Agnieszka Komoch
President of GEN-Europe
